The U.S. Won The Presidents Cup But Didn’t Learn Their Lesson

There’s a saying in team sports: All that matters is the win column.

The U.S. added another one Sunday at Medinah, turning a 10.5-7.5 deficit into a 17-13 Presidents Cup victory.

The Americans won Sunday singles 9.5-2.5, the largest margin in that session in Presidents Cup history. They have now won 11 straight Presidents Cups and 14 of the 16 played. The International Team hasn’t won since 1998.

Those numbers deserve celebrating. They also make it easy to overlook what happened before Sunday.

The U.S. entered the week with a substantial advantage in world rankings. Yet after three days of team matches, it was the Internationals who stood five points from victory.

The Americans produced a remarkable escape. They should also leave Chicago asking why they needed one.

The talent gap makes the first three days harder to explain

The International Team had plenty of accomplished players. Ryan Fox arrived as the reigning Open champion and veterans Hideki Matsuyama and Adam Scott brought considerable experience. The Korean trio of Si Woo Kim, Sungjae Im and Tom Kim gave the team energy and excellent play.

But the roster did not have the depth of the American side. Entering the event, the U.S. team’s average world ranking was about 15th compared with about 50th for the Internationals. LIV Golf’s exclusion also kept potential International selections such as Joaquin Niemann and Cameron Smith out of consideration.

That disparity is what makes the American performance in the team sessions so troubling. A narrow Thursday fourball win gave way to a 5-0 loss in Friday foursomes. The U.S. recovered some ground Saturday but still entered singles three points behind. For the first time in Presidents Cup history, the Internationals led on American soil heading into Sunday.

Credit Geoff Ogilvy’s team for creating that position. The Internationals played superbly in stretches and nearly won an event they were expected to lose. Their performance also exposed a recurring weakness in a U.S. team that had more than enough individual talent to control the week.

Another foursomes sweep demands an answer

For the second consecutive Presidents Cup, the Americans lost all five matches in a Friday foursomes session. They split Saturday afternoon’s foursomes matches this year, making their overall alternate-shot record at Medinah 2-7.

That is nine of the competition’s 30 points. At the Ryder Cup, foursomes accounts for eight of 28. The U.S. cannot treat trouble in that format as an occasional inconvenience.

There are familiar explanations. Perhaps the pairings are questionable, the players don’t prepare together enough or switching golf balls complicates matters. Maybe the favorite feels more pressure when every poor shot immediately becomes a partner’s problem. Any of those theories might contain some truth.

From the outside, it is difficult to know which matters most. There are definitely questions with throwing together partnerships like Scottie Scheffler-Sam Burns and Xander Schauffele-Patrick Cantlay without much thought. And captain Brandt Snedeker’s vague answer when asked why Russell Henley and Jacob Bridgeman were paired together doesn’t inspire confidence that there is a definitive process for creating duos. If there is a process, it’s not being communicated very well (and the results speak for themselves).

What we do know is that the Americans have been swept in the same session twice in two Presidents Cups. Sunday’s comeback changes the outcome of this one. It does not erase that pattern.

The U.S. should examine how it builds pairings, practices alternate shot and responds when a session begins to turn against it.

Sunday won’t always offer an escape

The 2027 Ryder Cup is in Ireland where the Americans can expect an experienced European team and a demanding road environment. The next Presidents Cup is at Kingston Heath in Australia in 2028.

It would be a mistake to assume either opponent will arrive with the same roster it has today. It would be equally risky to assume the U.S. can keep relying on superior depth to rescue a deficit in singles. Even this historically lopsided Sunday was tense until the points began arriving.

Snedeker and his players earned the right to celebrate what they accomplished at Medinah. Winning 9.5 points in singles under that pressure was extraordinary.

Once the celebration ends, however, they need to reckon with the three days that made it necessary. The U.S. won the Presidents Cup.

The question of how to make its best players a better team remains very much unanswered.